Barry Butler Talks About Accident

First of all... the two-car accident involving a total of 9 Wayway Wolverine players is no where near as bad or serious as some people made it out to be. It was certainly scary for everyone involved, but from what I hear some reports were blowing it up a little. Details were sketchy until today... so I tried to clear the air by calling Russell RCMP Sgt. Matt Lavalee, who responded to the crash, and Wayway Coach/GM Barry Butler.

Here's what they had to say.

Sgt. Matt Lavalee

"(Wednesday) at approximately 12:00 noon, we responded to the report of a collision approximately 3 miles east of Russell on Highway 45. Two east-bound vehicles, both driven by Wolverine players were heading towards Russell at approximately 1:30 a.m. As a result of weather conditions and road conditions, one vehicle did leave the roadway, and rolled in the north ditch on Highway 45. From what I understand, the driver of the driver of that vehicle was taken into Russell hospital for check-up and as a precautionary measure. At this point in time I'm not aware of any other injuries as a result of the accident. We're treating this as a basic motor vehicle collision, and we're very fortunate that there were no injuries."

Wayway Coach/GM Barry Butler

"We had come back from the Dauphin game and we all were leaving the rink. The boys travel in groups of two and (Assistant Coach) Jim (Fuyarchuk) follows along behind when we come back late at night to make sure all the boys get back to Russell. And about halfway between the Russell Golf Course and Russell they hit kind of a slippery spot and one car hit the brakes and the car started to swerve and they ended up bumping eachother into the ditch. They went into the ditch, one of the cars got spun backwards, ended up flipping and landing on the roof and side, popping all the windows out, and then rolled back onto its wheels, so that's what happened there."

"It could have been a lot worse when you look at the car. It's just one of those things in the game of hockey, people are travelling all the time. The way the accident was, the boys weren't speeding or anything because Jim was right behind them. It was okay, it's scary, they're shook up, and there was no way we could proceed with the game (Wednesday) night in OCN, we had to take care of that situation and go from there."

"We wanted to make sure our team doctor could check the boys over. Once your adrenaline's gone after an accident like that, the muscles are starting to get sore. We've got a couple of them back at the chiropractor and back at the doctor this (Thursday) morning."

"We're planning to proceed with our regular schedule Friday in Portage. We'll have an opportunity to use a couple AP's if we have to, to get us through a couple of days. We'll see how things are today. Everyone with the exception of a couple of guys skated yesterday (WED), just to get everyone's minds back on the game of hockey."

Butler said Paul Marcoux is the only Wolverine who might miss a game or two. He was the driver of the car that flipped, and his passengers were Cody Danychuk, Zach Sweet and Carey Dyck. Jordan Holovach was driving the other vehicle, and he had 4 others with him.

All I can say is I'm glad these young men are all okay. I know some players better than others, and Paul's a great kid who always says hi, and hopefully he can get back in the lineup as soon as possible and be able to carry on normally with hockey. Marcoux also leads the team with 29-goals and is second with 51-points.

The sad truth is if it were a group of "every-day" 18-20 year olds who rolled a car and no one was seriously hurt, it may not have even made the news... but hockey players are put under the microscope a little more, even at the junior level. It's releiving to know speeding, alcohol, etc, weren't involved, which I'm sure makes it a little easier to deal with.

All the best to the players involved, their families, and the Waywayseecappo organization.